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Itamar Rabinovich, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, is President of The Israel Institute (Washington, DC and Tel Aviv) and is a senior scholar at Tel Aviv University, New York University, and the Brookings Institution.

@Avraam Dectis: How about bringing a little twist to your solution of bribing Palestinians to leave their forefathers land.

Why not do the same for the Israelis, who in fact have been "bribed", if I could use the term, to settle in a land that did not belong to them, or at least that was settled by a certain populace before the latter was forced out through well-documented terror-tactics.

When I say that modern day Israelis have been "bribed" to settle in Palestine, it is with regard to the fact that most Jews emigrated from Europe and Ex-USSR under the threat of growing antisemitism and anti-religion bias, which reached its climax in Nazi Germany. Antisemitism is still alive in Europe, much as it was under the Inquisition, though the policies have changed, but the spirit remains the same.

How about Europe (including Ex-USSR) bribes its Jewish citizenry to go back to their forefathers' land in which they were born for generations. Most of Israelis came from those countries under the threat as I said of growing antisemitism and the promise of material well-being.

Now, I would argue that indeed Jews and Christian minorities in Muslim majority countries were not treated as full-fledged citizens, yet they had their rights protected more than in Europe and that is a historical fact that one can check by indulging in factual reading of trusted historical sources. The problem is that as countries in the Middle-East and North Africa started to get their independence in the post-empire era, and going into the nation-state era, European politics of hegemony that aimed at maintaining the old-paradigm of Empire (albeit through more nuanced means) have created sectarian frictions and divides that are at the sources of the current situation.

I agree with Avraam, but believe the concept should be extended to a complete property rights analysis of the conflict. Let an international court be established, and each party who feels aggrieved for the loss of his land appear with title and evidence for such claim with the proviso that settlement is final and that no further redress is possible. This rule would apply to Palestinians, of course; it would also apply to Jews (and their descendants) who were forced out of Egypt and other countries as well as Israelis who bought land in the occupied territories.

Obviously, full redress is impossible. But I do think that the roots of a real solution are more likely to be found thinking along these lines than any agreement like "land for peace," or military solutions that only leave resentful, unhappy people behind.

The truth is there exists no military or diplomatic solution using conventional means. We have been watching a vicious cycle, events repeating themselves again and again.
Avraam Dectis's solution from the comments is an interesting one, but unlikely to happen.
And looking beyond the Middle East we can easily find similar although less publicised conflicts, flash-points with similar deadlocks all over the world.
Today the world evolved into a single, unified, interconnected matrix, where any action affects the rest of the network with full force. Isolated solutions, actions, without taking the whole network into consideration are doomed to fail.
Any solution for the Middle East or other problems can only happen in the context of the mutual responsibility and consideration of the whole human network. For that each and every individual and nation needs to start planning and acting with the intention of promoting the well being of the total system, ahead of individual or national priorities.
In today's global, interdependent system each nation's and individual's value is solely measured by their positive contribution to the system.

This conflict could be ended with a genuine peace plan that would be barely acceptable to everyone. I propose one.

The current situation has two groups in close proximity who will continue to fight for eternity until they are separated like the quarreling children they really are - much like the Greeks and Turks ceased fighting after the Treaty of Lausanne.

The Israelis will never go. This only leaves the Gazans.

You cannot force people to migrate, it would be barbaric. Thus you have to bribe them.

What bribe would be acceptable?

Israel could offer $25,000 to every Gazan that would agree to go to another Arab country. A family of six would get $150,000. That might be acceptable.

Israel could even sweeten the pot by offering free houses in Egypt for whomever left.

People with immovable assets would be given at least ( or more ) fair market value for them.

The Gazans would not like this because they would be leaving and psychologically would feel defeated.

The Israelis would not like this because the cost would be huge and would decades to pay off the cost.

Ultimately, however, it is the only civilized solution and the only barrier is the expense. Money is easier to replace than people.

The alternative is that, a century from now, you will read about Palestinians and Israelis killing each other.

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